For example, a vehicle provided with an automatic operation function controls the operations to stop, travel, and so on by recognizing a traffic light provided along a traveling path of the vehicle and detecting a lighting state, such as lighting color, of the traffic light.
As a conventional traffic light recognition device, there is known, for example, the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 11-306489. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 11-306489, a camera is mounted on a vehicle and images a traffic light ahead. In this case, the angle in the horizontal direction and the angle in the vertical direction of the camera are controlled so that the traffic light is located at the center of an image captured by the camera. Furthermore, the magnification is controlled so that the image of the traffic light has a desired size.
However, in the conventional example disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 11-306489, a blur occurs in the image captured by a camera while changing the imaging direction of the camera, thus making the image recognition difficult. As the result, while changing the imaging direction of the camera the accuracy to detect the lighting state of a traffic light might decrease.